Showing posts with label communication. Show all posts
Showing posts with label communication. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

So We Meet Again Yahoo!

I like to play around with different browsers. Yahoo! Mail doesn't like that. Currently I'm playing around with the new Firefox 3.5 Beta, which for some reason was named "Shiretoko" by Mozilla, when I try to read my email. And Yahoo! Mail blocks me. This isn't the first time something like this has happened. Yahoo! Mail lets certain versions of Opera log on and then sends them into a constant redirect loop when you try to access your inbox. Yahoo! Mail also complains that the 1024x600 resolution on my Acer netbook is too low.

Ironically enough, the error screen that Yahoo! Mail throws up at me lists the browsers that it supports and one of them is Firefox 2.0.0.1 or higher. Guess what Yahoo, Shiretoko is Firefox 3.5. That makes it Firefox 2.0.0.1 or higher. Your own splash screen is locking me out of Yahoo! Mail even though I'm using a browser which technically is on your list of supported browsers. Another irony? Chrome which is not in Yahoo's list works just fine with Yahoo Mail!

Granted, Yahoo! Mail does let you go to its "classic" mail page but it's nowhere near as nice as the one that they are locking down so zealously. I have been using Shiretoko on a spare laptop for about a week and I haven't had a single crash. Google applications like GMail and Google Reader work just fine with it and I suspect that Yahoo! Mail would work just fine with it too. Yahoo! needs to get its act together or it will continue to fall behind Google in terms of web app functionality.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

The Text Message From Space!

As part of an attempt to reach out to young people, NASA has put the Phoenix Mars probe on Twitter which makes it possible for cell phone users to get text messages directly from the red planet. Not wanting to be left behind, The European Space Agency has also put its Planck spacecraft on Twitter. Perhaps due to its more esoteric mission, Planck is much less popular on Twitter than Phoenix. I can't help but wonder how this development affects that the recent claims that an SMS message is four times more expensive than the cost of getting data from the Hubble Space telescope.